


In Between

by SaltyWords (agent4hire22)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s11e01 Out of the Darkness Into the Fire, M/M, One Shot, POV Castiel, Pining, Writer's Block, free write, super quick coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 12:19:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4960348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent4hire22/pseuds/SaltyWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel has a lot to deal with. His world is crumbling around him.<br/>Still, when he accidentally calls Dean instead of Sam, the brief exchange shines a light at the end of his quickly darkening tunnel. It's everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Between

**Author's Note:**

> This is a super quick one shot coda to 11X01. (Basically a free write) I was just trying to work through some writer's block. Sorry all.

Castiel leaned into the bushes, felt the twigs and leaves grate against his skin. He closed his eyes, struggling against the burn in his eyelids. His mind was on fire. His eyes felt like eggs plopped in a pot on rolling boil. 

He choked down a raw swallow and the same sharp pain trailed down his throat. Like he’d just downed a shot glass of staples. He listened as the people to the north shouted. They were getting closer. The police would eventually find him. He couldn’t move fast enough, he couldn’t get his brain to work. It kept jarring in and out again. He would pluck a thought from the sky and lose it just as quickly. 

_Shelter in the tree cover would be-- Crowley didn’t die. I know he didn’t die. I can feel him._

His fingers twitched. “Please, brothers and sisters. I’m sorry,” he groaned. It took everything he had in him. He was no longer too good to beg. He’d fallen all the way to the earth, and now he’d grovel if he had to. He needed help. He needed their help. He couldn’t do it on his own. He was afraid to try. 

He was afraid he’d kill someone. 

Rowena’s spell had him against the rocks. 

_Rowena,_ he shivered. The blast of auburn hair and perfectly primped eyes assaulted him. He remembered her standing with the Book of the Damned tucked in her arm. The way she’d smiled, waved her little hand in his direction. The gentle curl of her words as she’d spoke. _Impetus Bestiarum,_ and it had rang through his head like a chime. Consumed him. 

She’d gotten free. Run away with some of the most powerful known magic. Left Castiel and Crowley to die in her wake. 

He had to tell Sam. 

He forced his hand into a shaky fist and balled it into his pocket, groped around, fisted out his cellphone. Maybe it was force of habit, or maybe it was his fried brain, but he accidentally plucked Dean’s name from his contacts list instead of Sam. He cursed himself as it rang, moved to hang it up, but the call connected before he got there. 

“Cas? Where the hell are you?” Dean’s voice rolled through the receiver like dust. 

Cas stumbled, blinked, jerked the phone up to his ear. His thoughts jumped wildly through his head. He didn’t know why suddenly he couldn’t think of anything to say. He didn’t know why talking to Dean now seemed like such a damn daydream. “I’m okay,” he said quickly, but he wasn’t sure if he’d meant that for Dean or himself. 

“You don’t sound okay.” 

_What does it matter?_ Cas thought. “I’m fine,” he repeated. “What I have, you can’t help me--” 

“What do you mean _what you have_?” 

Cas heard the click in Dean’s throat, felt the tension through the phone like static. Like he was waiting, really waiting. Not just going through the motions. 

“I--uh,” Cas stuttered. There was something there. Something that’d been missing for so long, Cas’ brain plinked against it like glass. “Just,” he swallowed. “Please tell Sam Rowena escaped with the Book of the Damned and the codex.” 

“Okay, forget Rowena. Where are you?” Dean huffed, impatient and… _scared?_

A shiver rolled through Cas. He blinked again and it was like grains of sand. “No,” he breathed. “You tell me--” 

That sound. 

That tone in his voice. 

It was Dean. 

It was his heart. 

“The Mark?” Cas asked desperately. 

He was afraid to ask it. He was afraid what the answer might be. With all the evidence in front of him, it still seemed like the idea was an unreachable brass ring. 

“Oh, you’re worried about me after everything I--” 

“Dean!” Cas tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He couldn’t do this right now. He needed him to be honest. Later he could tell him he wasn’t fine. That his eyes were on fire and he was a fried nerve away from snapping into a murder spree. But, not now. Now he needed to hear Dean tell him he was cured. That he was well again. Saved. 

_He needs to be saved._

“Is it gone?” 

He listened the sigh at the end of the line, the reluctance. He felt the concession as it slipped past Dean’s lips. 

Cas gripped the phone like the lifeline it was, waited. Forgot to breathe. 

“Yes. I’m good,” Dean said, and the answer was like silk through the conversation. Soft and rich. 

It breathed life back into him. Cas sunk to his knees, closed his eyes and gripped a tight fist against his chest. _It’s okay,_ he told himself. _Everything, all of it… he’s okay._

“I mean, I’m not _great_ ,” Dean amended playfully, 

It was like he was living a memory of someone he used to know. Someone he dreamed of. Even though angels couldn’t dream, Castiel still managed to dream of Dean. He dreamed of him now, standing at the other end of the connection, smiling. God, Cas hoped he was smiling. If not for Cas, then for Sam. If not for either of them, then, dear God, for himself. 

Cas smiled. He wasn’t quite sure where he found it, or what hole he dug it up from, but Dean kicked the happiness back onto his sore face with ease. “That makes two of us,” he said, because it was so much easier than all the other things he wanted to say. 

_I miss you, Dean. I’ve missed you._

_Stay safe, stay well._

_I love you._

That last thought sat thick with him, congealed in the back of his throat. He’d hoped for this moment, spent hours and days--months begging his father for it. He’d promised himself he would say something to Dean, if only to let him know that no matter what happened, no matter the mountain of mistakes and missteps they’d created, that he loved him, that Dean would always have a friend in him, and, if he wanted… more. 

But as Cas stood staring the moment down, the shrubbery scratching into his lit skin, feeling the pain in his eyes and throat, the stiff wrought tension in his knuckles, he knew he couldn’t say that. Dean had enough to worry about. He didn’t need to worry about Cas. He shouldn’t ever have to worry about Cas. 

The last thing Castiel wanted to do was cause more problems. More pain. 

_No._

For better or worse, he would deal with it himself. The mess of the curse from Rowena, whatever happened to Crowley, whatever hell on earth they’d managed to unleash. He needed to start setting things right, and as badly as he wanted to start with Dean, he couldn’t be selfish. 

At any moment his brothers and sisters would be there to get him. They’d drag him home and he’d have to atone for the things he’d done. 

Maybe heaven would see what the Winchesters really meant to him… maybe they would understand and let him come back. 

He let that wish slip through his mind like sand through loose fingers. He already knew they wouldn't. 

He blinked at the end of the phone, realized that Dean had asked him a question. “Why would I talk about the Darkness?” 

“Because it’s free,” Sam said, his voice crackling through the weak speakerphone connection. “Removing the Mark opened up a lock. Dean saw her.” 

_Saw her?_ Cas looked around. “The Darkness is a… woman?” 

“That’s what we’re asking,” Dean said. Castiel could hear more in his tone. He wasn’t really asking it. He already knew. There was shame buried in there. 

_Dean…_

A rustle of movement behind Cas drew his attention and drowned the rest of what Dean said out. Cas’ stomach dropped, his knees went weak. 

“Sam, Dean. Goodbye,” he said quietly, abruptly. He heard the jump of Dean’s throat on the other line. 

“Cas? Wait--” 

_I wish I could, Dean._ _I would wait forever for you._


End file.
